Diseases & Conditions Archive

What is the test?

Vaginitis is inflammation or an infection of the vagina; symptoms usually include itchiness or irritation, abnormal discharge, and an unpleasant odor. Diagnosing the cause of vaginitis involves a simple examination of the vaginal fluid under a microscope or sending the sample to a laboratory for a culture.

How do I prepare for the test?

Because douches or vaginal creams can make it hard for the doctor to interpret test results, don't use these products before the test. No other preparation is necessary.

What Is It?

There are two types of thyroid nuclear medicine tests. Both assess the health of your thyroid, a gland in your neck. The first type, a thyroid scan, produces a picture of the gland. It can spot lumps or inflammation, or to investigate the cause of an overactive thyroid. The second type, a radioactive iodine uptake test, is performed to see if your thyroid is functioning normally and to determine why thyroid hormone levels may be elevated. For both types of test, a small amount of a weakly radioactive substance, known as a radionuclide, is either injected into a vein or given to you as a pill.

What It's Used For

A thyroid scan is usually ordered when a physical examination or laboratory finding suggests that the thyroid is enlarged or has a lump (called a thyroid nodule). If laboratory tests show an overactive thyroid, a radioactive iodine uptake test may be ordered at the same time to evaluate thyroid function.

What is the test?

Video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) is a type of surgery that enables doctors to view the inside of the chest cavity after making only very small incisions. The doctor can examine the outside surface of the lung and the inner surface of the chest wall through a camera attached to the scope. Abnormal appearing areas on the lung surface can be biopsied.

VATS also provides relatively easy access to taking a biopsy of the lung.  This may be needed to diagnose the cause of abnormalities on a chest x-ray or to determine the specific infectious agent responsible for pneumonia that is not getting better on antibiotics.

If you’re like most people with hearing loss, you’ll probably find that it takes time to accept the idea that you need a hearing aid, and you may be unhappy when your audiologist recommends that you get not one, but two. Chances are that your first question will be, “Is it normal to get two hearing aids?” And then, “Do I really need two?”

If you have hearing loss in only one ear and normal or nearly normal hearing in the other, then one hearing aid is all you need. But most people have hearing loss in both ears, especially if the loss is age-related. (You may have one ear that’s better than the other, but chances are both will be in the same ballpark.) In that case, research and experience suggest that you’ll ultimately be more satis­fied with two hearing aids.

You have a brief window to seek treatment.

Everyone's hearing naturally declines with age, and people often have one ear that hears better than the other. But if hearing loss appears suddenly in one ear for no apparent reason, you may have experienced sudden sensorineural hearing loss, or SHL, a kind of nerve deafness.

There are about 66,000 new cases of SHL per year in the United States, according to research in the August 2019 issue of Otolaryngology — Head and Neck Surgery. But these numbers are hard to come by, since the condition may be underdiagnosed.

Ask the doctors

Q. My mother is in her late 80s. She received the flu vaccine this year, but I heard that it won't be as effective because of her age. Is this true?

A. The flu vaccine can be less effective in elderly adults. That's because the flu vaccine works by priming the body's own immune system to mount a response to the virus if it's encountered. Older adults may have weaker immune systems, and therefore a weaker immune response to the vaccine.

Palliative care improves comfort and quality of life for people with serious illness and their families, yet many people who could benefit from these services are not taking advantage of them

Ignoring symptoms of this carpal tunnel syndrome can lead to permanent nerve damage.

First, you may notice tingling or numbness in your fingers that comes and goes. Over time, the sensations may get worse, lasting longer or even waking you up at night. Eventually the pain and numbness might even make it hard to grip things like a fork, a pen, or other objects.

If you're having these symptoms, it could be carpal tunnel syndrome, which occurs when the median nerve — which runs down your arm and into your hand — is compressed by a ligament that crosses over it as it passes through a narrow space in the wrist known as the carpal tunnel.

Even after cataracts are successfully removed, a new problem may bring back the same symptoms.

When the clear lens inside your eye becomes cloudy, it's called a cataract. Cataracts are a common cause of poor vision in older age, with symptoms such as blurry vision and the appearance of halos around lights. Doctors can restore your vision by removing the cloudy lens and replacing it with an artificial lens implant.

But sometimes a side effect of the procedure triggers the return of cataract symptoms. The side effect is called posterior capsule opacification, also known as a secondary cataract. "This affects about a third of people who have cataract surgery. It's one of the reasons we ask people to come back for follow-ups," says Dr. Roberto Pineda, a cataract surgeon at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts Eye and Ear.